What would be really nice...

[80grit]

Is to have some sort of projector display a scaled image of the piece to be cut on your table. This would really help when you are trying to strategically place sheet goods. If you have a piece with a blemish, knots, or a previous "learning experience" you want to work around.

Shirley this has been thought of already.

[Davo]

Maybe easier to snap a pic of the wood from a long distance and scale it in the software instead and then build on top of it?

[Brady Watson]

They been had it...N (http://www.nemi.com/laser_projector.htm)EMI (http://www.nemi.com/laser_projector.htm)

Hope your pockets are prenty deep...

-B

[Kyle Stapleton]

We use one kid on a tape measure and one at the pc drawing in knots and things.

[donek]

It might be possible to do something like this with a PC projector and the preview screen. There would obviously be some calibration involved initially, but you might get usable results.

[80grit]

It might be possible to do something like this with a PC projector and the preview screen. There would obviously be some calibration involved initially, but you might get usable results.

That's along the lines of what I was thinking. Setup might take some time, but it seems like it would be worth it if you make a variety of things in various sizes. I'm really just getting started, and I'm discovering that if I don't make sure I optimize my materials, then I'm going to leave a lot of money on the table. The other day, I made my first cut into a piece of aluminum composite, and I made a quarter-size goof towards the middle of the piece. If I could project my next project onto the material before cutting, I could make adjustments and work around the goof with a high level of confidence.

[myxpykalix]

I had thought about this alot because i was running into issues of clamp placement and sometimes spend alot of time measuring dimensions and transferring that to the material.
I could see how you might be able to project something from above but your carriage is going to get in the way.

[bobmoore]

I would just cut out the perimeter cut with 1/2 home depot insulation, lay it on your material on the bot where you want it and rezero there. Bob

[jerry_stanek]

I though some news print over it and plot it with a widgetworks plotter pen. Have been doing this for years when I have to cut out perprinted material.

[shilala]

I measure. And measure and measure.
Sometimes a piece of material just isn't going to work, so I grab another piece, or make a useful piece out of the knotty piece by adding another width of stock to it.

[gerryv]

Neat idea. Perhaps the easiest way to implement it would be to mount your smartphone to the gantry. Using the cam's fairly wide field of view and panorama capability capture the sheet as the gantry runs quickly down the table. These cams do a pretty good job of correcting fisheye distortion. Here's the key. you'd then use a drawing program to put your actual drawing on one layer and overlay the camera's image on a second layer with the top one being semi-transparent. Some drawing programs do this - not sure about Vectric but it would sure be an interesting feature.

[Brady Watson]

Just to come from a K.I.S.S. perspective...maybe a carpenter's pencil or other non-permanent drawing device (chalk? soapstone?) could be used to just draw right on the material. Spring load it so it doesn't snap off...

-B

[myxpykalix]

Like Jerry had mentioned a plotter pen would be way less "Cool" but way more "easy" if what you have is a piece of wood where you have things you want to highlight and things you want to avoid.
Although to me it is like cutting twice. But i get it. I had a woman bring me several pieces of beautiful maple and she spent hours laying it out trying to get all the hilites, putting it together like a puzzle, moving and mixing and matching.